[IDEA] Installing Apps on your USB or Thumb/Flash Drive

[jhuny-arj]

Please read conditions below carefully, and don't delete this part. Invalid issues will be closed.

• No apps related to piracy or intellectual property infringement is allowed.
• We can't guarantee if the app will be developed by anyone.
• We encourage you to develop the app by yourself. This would be a great contribution to webOS homebrew community.

• I understand conditions above
• (Optional) I'd like to develop this app by myself

Issue content starts below this line

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[mariotaku]

Sounds like https://github.com/webosbrew/webos-homebrew-channel related question. Shall we move it there?

[jhuny-arj]

ok. first time I publish an issue. i don't know how to remove.

[mariotaku]

Don't worry. I'll transfer this issue for you.

[jhuny-arj]

Thank you

[Informatic]

Just to clarify - you want to have an app installed on a USB drive (due to limited internal TV storage), or do you want to install an ipk file onto the TV that is provided on a USB drive?

[jhuny-arj]

app installed on a USB drive (due to limited internal TV storage)

[jhuny-arj]

Do you have any scripts available for this?

[mariotaku]

This is a good feature but external storage in webOS is quite unreliable.

[jhuny-arj]

mariotaku this makes sense. but for apps like retroarch on a tv with very limited storage, I can't speak for everyone. for me it's worth the risk. I believe a lot in this project... I believe that more apps will emerge ... but if you don't have this option (install on usb)... will significantly affect the amount of people using webosbrew... Root access alone, already greatly increases the vulnerability of a smart TV, especially in users who are not advanced ... like me.

Maybe a warning about the vulnerabilities before installing on flashdrive?

I'm using an online translator... I hope you translated it right.

[mariotaku]

I think everything you said was expressed well. Yes, on some TVs they only have very limited storage like 600MB (on mine), but with proper building we can make the app relatively small and doesn't take too much space.

@Informatic I have an idea though, is to use bind mount for apps, and by default they are a placeholder showing warnings.

[ericblade]

fwiw, somewhere during development of the system, there was support for applications on external devices. I do not have any specific knowledge as to if that feature made it to any released devices -- or likewise, it might be hanging out in all of them, but no one knows how to use it.
I want to say the 'sam' service has some responsibility in that... I believe there's a service somewhere on device that when a usb disk is inserted, it will scan the drive for applications, and then call sam to update the launcher.

One might try an ls-monitor then insert a USB stick, and watch what happens

[throwaway96]

@ericblade

cryptofs apps can be installed on external media, but AFAIK Dev Mode ones can't.